


In and Out

by korik



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Character Study, Drabble, Drabble Collection, Drunk Sex, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, Genderplay, No Incest, Oral Sex, Riding, Rule 63, Sexual Content, Sister-Sister Relationship, Sisters, Woman on Top, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-23 03:44:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/korik/pseuds/korik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I plan on doing more drabbles. All of Asgard is sex flopped, and the name Thor is just a title (Audra is her real name, Thor is earned with the receiving of Mjolnir). Thor is thought of on Earth as a man because social paradigms changed throughout Midgard's history.<br/>__________<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention I jump around a lot? This takes place before, where Thor first meets Hawkeye (or a moment before).

"What do you think, Barton?"

Agent Coulson (current acting director of the operation - a pleasant alternative to the forever bald Nick Fury) and Agent Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye; the Man Who Does Not Miss), both similar in height and choice of color for dress (black like week old coffee), but questionably in mental age from one period to the next gazed through the glass at the hastily hosed down, still dripping, hunched over figure embalmed in the blue second skin that used to be her clothing (it should be replaced, that’s cruel; cold as fuck in here). A silent figure trying to bore a hole into the floor and possibly bury herself, this one, oddly so since the previous invasion attempt to what appeared to be a ornate battlehammer embedded in a stunning imitation of the Sword in the Stone.

Barton shifted his weight, one thick boot squeaking lightly as it peeled slow drying mud onto the once immaculate silver floor, a wrapped hand coming up to attempt to air dry his flattened blonde locks once again (Coulson deserves every speck of water I fling at him - guy looks like he hasn’t been busy enough). “She’s a fighter, sir, that much is obvious - inhuman, maybe. Like I said, I was starting to root for her, still am.” A pause, his tongue adjusting to suck on his own upper canines and remove the last bits of a ham sandwich he had received (positive reinforcement - didn’t even have the right goddamn cheese). “Though I will say I noticed shame - agony. Embarrassment. This battle hardened lady has just been spanked.”

Coulson reacted predictably, a brow barely quirking and a quick exhalation of air as he filed away what he’d been told. “Well, we better then find out who is doing the spanking, as you put it, because I want to know if there are more like her.” He began to walk away - another call to the real Director, most likely.

"Tell me if she does anything, Barton, you’re in charge of the prisoner until then."

Clint’s eyes swinging back from watching Coulson’s neatly kept hair start to disappear into the dark, he muttered, “Aye aye, captain.” He’d do his job. And maybe get the poor damn thing a blanket in the meantime.


	2. Bone Chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time-skip going le backwards to when they first actually met face to face. You get to see a bit more of the gender role reversals (I hope, as it is what I intend) that Asgard has in contrast to Earth. I amusingly keep trying not to make an "Angel One" reference of Star Trek fame a bit out of spite because, in my opinion, it was a bit painfully too much..heterosexual conformist. Which is I suppose slightly ironic.

The whole area was a painful, antiseptic white, the kind that reminded Clint of burning days in the unrelenting sun where the skin started to blister and peel or days spent with some fractured or cracked array of delicately fingered ribs that he'd so charmingly thought to abuse by somehow causing a building to collapse, the heavy beams shuddering, and dust choking his lungs.

Really, it just made him _antsy_. He expected at any moment his immunization day was up and they'd set him through the rounds, and he'd be itching for days afterword, sick to his stomach - just plain _fucking miserable_. While he was used to the standard, it still lightly peeved him that they sometimes seemed to expect he would be anything but pissed, underfed, pasty, and feeling like the next person who told him to say "sir" when being addressed was going to get a fist through the front teeth.

Thankfully, the reflective, glimmering windows that made up the one-way prison quickly killed that, what with it's contents of a slumped over in the collapsible chair, shivering faintly (he was probably being oversensitive again, a lack and simultaneous increase in the cones that made his eyes work the way they did made him keenly interested in his surroundings) from a breeze thanks to the air filtration system that demanded the computers work, sticky, muddied strands of what he assumed was normally a bizarrely golden blonde a bit like the Swedish or Nordic stereotype, and the rest was a hastily hosed down entourage of mud spattered clothing he was fairly certain you can find at the nearest Gap or Old Navy.

The woman never looked at him as he entered the room, browned hands holding her hanging head as if something truly hurt on the inside of her skull, digits almost threatening.

He cleared his voice after a few awkward moments of staring. "Hey, you okay?" Receiving no reply dimly disappointed him, and he continued. "You cold?"

For once, a soft noise escaped the other, and he stopped, meticulously watching what he could see of her down-turned face through the red clay stained strands that was supposed to be hair. "I deserve none of your pity, stranger; leave me." 

He had an odd feeling she was used to ordering people around, and then used to being immediately satisfied. "Sorry, I can't do that; I've got orders." The official tone was easy, but he had a sinking sense of curiosity for the woman who had just reduced a highly trained squadron of some of the best men he'd seen in hand to hand combat. Then again, they'd been told to subdue, and not kill. If it was killing that needed to be done, many were more than capable. In the end he was glad Coulson made a different call, something about her performance made him consider that she would be very unlikely otherwise to go down without a fight, and even disabled she'd try to crush anything that came within range. "I can get you a blanket." It sounded repetitive, but he was determined to get some response out of her, or this would be one hell of a night.

Surprisingly, she looked at him, and while the look for a moment was severe, colored by the faint flush of heat to her cheeks (almost like the sure signs of a royal tantrum coming), he noticed that the normal whites of her eyes were colored - dark instead of pale, the soft flesh of her eyelids swollen. She'd been crying in silence, and the bitter grimace aimed at him now was not one of anger directed at him because he was the source, but because she really was breaking, and it was possible she felt humiliated in his presence at seeing the cracks in whatever armor made her the way she was.

Odd to think that, perhaps, accompanied with the rich accent that reminded him of some sort of European country (must've been small, or without crime, because he had pretty good ears and it gave him no hints as to her origin), her posturing, her expression - all of it was carefully constructed, feminine in the ways that seemed to only make her powerful, not fragile, and _not_ an object to be stared at, even embraced to be comforted. In that sense, was she masculine? She had a slumped posture, broad legged splay as she hunched, and yet it wasn't the sort he'd been trained to recognize having been trained with one of the best when it came to reading body language and manipulating a situation to suit the goals he wanted. Clearly she was uncomfortable despite his confusion, even at odds with herself.

"I have no need to be comforted - " she was saying, and he tried not to notice the way _comforted_ came out sounded oddly...sexual? Was that even the word for the way her tongue seemed to interpret it? - "It is ill-timed, and -" Though anger had made her voice swell, her posturing slightly righting itself to something that put her more at ease, it failed yet again, and her voice went with it, a hand almost nervously curling and tugging painfully through the mess on her head.

An eyebrow raised and he shook his head, raising a hand before facing the glistening door, flashing his card with his most recent mugshot for exit, then disappearing into the gaping maw of the makeshift doorway, shuffling about in the dull glow of the computers and staring employees that clearly wanted to know what the hell he was doing. He returned back through the door with a flick of the same card over the reader, a black, synthetic wool blanket heaped over his arm. "Blanket; it's too cold in here." A broken record.

The look on her face was almost worth it. It was wide eyed and confused before the brows crunched and darkened her face as though perhaps trying, struggling to understand. "I apologize, I am not - not thinking clearly. I do forget my place as a prisoner."

A shake of his head and he tries offering her a smile. "It's fine," and then immediately regrets it as the look comes back as if he has been condescending towards her. Definitely need to figure out the language and or cultural barrier that made her feel just a hair outside of his usual western hemisphere fare. "Don't worry about it, the blanket is yours to use. I'll see if I can scrounge you up a cot as well." He offers the blanket to her as he speaks, and watching her carefully grasp it, most likely willfully ignoring the flaking mud as she tore the still damp shirt from her frame, shoulders heaving and bits of brown flying, and dropping it into a pathetic file on the floor next to her feet.

He had a feeling he shouldn't avert his gaze, though he couldn't quite help the normal bit of color that filled his skin, and make his chest pinch as he tried to remain cool and natural in the face of something that, clearly, she thought was also normal. 

_Man, I want to live where she lives_ , he thought to himself, carefully thumbing at his own lip as he shifted his weight from one leg to another, a hand sliding to rest on his hip. As she wrapped her once uncovered breasts with their tapered nipples flush and erect from the cold, the ripple of what looked like a massive set of bruising on her abdomen, and then the bit of fading marks from her fight with the security detail, he tried hard to look impassive, swallowing the urge to shift a bit more so his threatening dick didn't betray him.

And you know, if he didn't know better, it looked like a massive object had just rammed - 

"Will you...counsel me?"

A blink, and for yet a second time he had to try not to appear as if he'd been contemplating the well built frame of an oddly hypnotizing individual. "Counsel...?" The look on her face was careful, guarded, but an edge to it showed some...desperation. "Sure, I have time to kill." Not bothering with a chair he knew wasn't there (specifically done so the prisoner would feel at odds with whomever would come into the room - that whole height equaling domination thing, pretty amusing when you weren't necessarily the tallest individual in the world, particularly when compared to someone Clint gauged was probably a good head taller than himself), he leaned up against the glass, a couple of rough fingers moseying their way into his pockets and belt loops.

She did not sigh or heave out an obvious sign of relief, but he could tell she was pleased to have an ear, even a strange one, to speak to, or perhaps to just hang around with. "May I inquire as to your name?"

The response was automatic. "Hawkeye, or Clint to my friends; yours?"

"Tho - " For once he saw her fumble around the words she seemed to normally so readily command, and the light of friendliness dissipated like a candle being doused with water, and the ache of despair twinged true. "A-audra. My name is Audra."

To press for the lost name would be foolish since it seemed most likely tied to the thing that caused the unbidden streaks down her partially cleaned face, and instead he took his own initiative to keep the conversation going, quickly moving on. "Is there something special about the hammer?"

"Mjolnir? It is - was - my own. 'Twas what I was given to me, and a name for mastering myself."

"Mjolnir? Sounds like something I've heard before - a fairytale?"

She blinks at him, for a moment distracted from the heavy weight he can see on her shoulders. "Fairytale? I can assure you Mjolnir is quite real."

He purses his lips, trying to remember the giant hammer that was the property of a God, a God of fertility and war? named - "Thor? Wait, you're a _God_?"

A soft laugh, he still sees the way she lightly flinches and yet rejoices at being recognized (probably a bit of a narcissist) when a smile breaks over her face, cracking the laugh into a warm chuckle. "Aye, some do suppose so, and I shall not dissuade them. It is what I am."

He cants his head to the side, hoping to make his voice as easy as possible, his curiosity too much to bite back. And besides, what the hell else were they going to do? He wouldn't mind a pretty lady crying on his shoulder. "So why are you allowing us to keep you here? Couldn't you just... I dunno, fly away? Up and disappear?"

The pinch of the flesh between her startlingly blue eyes is disturbing, and yet it seems like she has done her quiet mourning, left now only to share, or process what her aching wound has left her in silence. Maybe even pretend it never happened, but he's not sure she's the type to do so. "I have...lost my connection - lost my purpose. I was cast out, dismissed, and stripped of my rank and power for the foolishness that has now not only caused my people to return to war and death, but..." the pause is heartbreaking, and the rest then comes in a rush, like breathing out as she accepts it. "My mother has been lost, and my father wishes me to not return."


	3. Forgive to Forget

"What changed? Why should you not wish for their destruction as before?" _  
_

The elder sister turned, somber blues sad, grieved, whites tainted in pink, heat from the pain.

The elegantly dressed in golds and greens, the curving horns and sneering smile, disbelief plain. “You cannot tell me after so short a time it was _he_.”

Something about the viper’s tongue, the way the rage seemed to fill her younger sibling made Audra nervous, made the horrible lump in her throat ache, the pit in her stomach burn as though something diseased would not come out again. “I will not fight you, sister! Do not press me so - we should not do this - not destroy an entire race of people over petty grievances.”

When Loki laughed, Audra’s soul wept. At the snarl, it took all her will to not tremble, and buckle to the floor.

"I am _not your sister_!”

"We are; do you not remember how we played together, _fought_ together? Raised  _together_!” How much it seemed she was grasping at straws, grasping at this thing that had taken over her beautiful, wonderful sister. Strong and proud as before, willowy, powerful, once so…

It makes Thor sick to realize she cannot _understand_. And _could not see for she has been so privileged._  The Hawk was right.

Oh how I have failed you.


	4. I'm here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And after being possessed by Loki, Clint has nightmares...

He woke up screaming, coughing, grabbing at an invisible line of containment as Audra was ripped from delirious sleep to gather him to her chest, ignoring the smaller man’s fists, claws and foul words being thrust against her.

The small body, strung with arrested, well worn muscle finally tore from her frantic grasp and soft, Asgardian tongue. English - _English_!

"Clint, it is **I**!”

The hoarse whisper in the dark was like a bullwhip - and sense flooded the Hawk.

"A-audra? Oh god - Audra -"

Allowed to entangle him close once again, urging on his venomous sobs to relieve the tension, the goddess did not flinch as he curled into the fine scratches he’d burned into her frame thinking she was someone else.

"Stupid - I feel like I’m drowning all over again - she pushes me down and I can’t wake up, _fuck_ , Audra -” he has realized and his heavy brow curls, himself forgotten in the heat of the moment as the rough pad of his thumb lightly brushes over her cheek and the raised, bloodied mark on it.

"Pay it no mind - my sister shall not touch you again, Barton, this I promise -" She hisses, teeth gritted in a confused rage of her own, barely subdued in the face of his pain. Her connection caused this. Her sister. Her family. It was all she could do to not take the act and make it her own.

But the Hawk was paying her no mind, sharp eyes having picked out the tube of neosporin on the floor below, knocked there by his desperation and he half falls off the bed in a determined move.

Audra growls, reaching to wrestle him back onto the bed, pinning his frame beneath her and hearing his reciprocating growl as his half-triggered eyes glared daggers up, scoring no marks this time, forced to listen. To wait. To admire.

"She cannot take you now - I am **here**.”


	5. It's a Thunderhawk Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is full of errors, nsfw and is not even completed, but I bring you what I write during work. Uh, also, I edit this a bit while I write because woo, I can.

A Goddess. Lounging in a spectacular position altogether charmingly reminiscent of a Grecian vase. But a bored, spectacularly lounging Goddess freshly showered and unclothed except for a partially askew black bathrobe is more accurate.

Clint Barton was partly pleased and partly amused that the head towel he had suggested Audra use for her hair had been neatly tossed into the nearby laundry basket (neatly tossed into the nearby laundry basket meant the half visible aforementioned device in the bathroom back a bit along the hallway there - something not many besides the Hawk could do without looking). This she had done while decreeing the dripping fray of blonde was “dry enough” in her thick accent. This made him smile more.

She looked amazing because in some ways, it was still hard to believe.

An Asgardian Goddess of myth and legend was reveling in his small apartment. Sure, she seemed a bit bored, a temporary setback, but she wouldn’t leave. He was the reason why.

He was her boyfriend.

Not that she referred to him as such, the Thunder Goddess was too sophisticated for that. Tony Stark had shared that experience with them all when he brought it up and was denied in a moment by her perking eyebrow and thin lips - “inaccurate, it fails to account for our age” or some such. As it was, she succumbed to it only when others failed to grasp the Asgardian term. It was an endearing distinction, much like her stormy personality and way of throwing herself into all she did, serving to secure her position in the marksman’s nest.

In the now, her partial naked state was the thing that enraptured him. His gaze wasted very few, precious seconds to familiarize himself with the slow rise and fall of her shoulders, the ripple of abdominal muscle, and slide of well toned muscle underneath the exposed skin of her thighs and calves as she hunted a more comfortable position.

Remember to breathe.

Audra was oblivious. “Lay with me.” Ah. She unoften was.

Barton’s eyebrows raised, eyes wide and keenly aware of the fixed stare she bestowed on him. “Me?” The picture of innocence.

It was an electrical, nerve titillating bore. “Come, Hawk, I desire you.” The accent was growing thicker. Her voice was becoming an entrancing, lyrical hum freeing itself from her lips. The innuendo, in the forefront now, melded with the way she roused herself from her makeshift throne: his unbirthday present from Nat, a life resistant couch because his last one met an unfortunate enemy of the red-headed spy.

Caught in her slow pounce, he marveled for a moment at her honesty - astoundingly blunt, by human terms, scant a friend to shyness and filled to the brim with a sort of anachronistic mix of barbarism and nobility.

Unaware and perhaps uncaring of his notations on her, Audra’s larger frame, oozing grace and uncurling power, bore the marks of brutal onslaughts across her sternum and ribcage. The delicate jagged edges like faint tattooing but rough and palatable to his fingertips.

Her hand scraped about his neck causing the hackles to raise as she crushed his mouth to hers. He struggled for air but could only moan for the enjoyment of the depravity. Cool and steel, hot and fire. She seemed to suck every last thought out of his head, seizing all movement.

Her rouge lips gave him a moment’s peace as she hissed through clenched teeth - his nails were blunt but the black robe was more useful on the carpet. The lady’s breasts, neatly trapped against his chest, sent a lurch of wantonness through him; he could only take a step or so against this war beast, lay fevered kisses to puffy lips between gasps for chilled air. The shaggy blonde hair tickled his cheeks and eyelids like tortuous butterflies’ kisses aimed to entice, draw his attention to her and her alone.

The clattering noise startled him - his body stiffened and shock escaped his mouth, the elegant line of her shoulder forgotten. Somehow her hand had captured his swollen sex, the button and zipper of his jeans having paid the price for keeping the Goddess from her prize. The sound of approval she let out sent a degenerating shudder, and he tried not to lose his balance in the half dark.

Purring at him. _Damn you, Audra,_ he wanted to curse. Spit out some foul endearment just to egg her on as she teased his cockhead with her thumb.

"Good," her voice scratched over his neck, "you are as wanting as I."

One thing Hawkeye could be was patient. After that, however, he lost all semblance of it, snapping, “Fuck this.” He threw her back with a grunt, smack onto her pretty Asgardian royal ass.

Though the noise emitted was one of surprise, she looked ravenous for more, a hand groping out and leaving a nasty rip down his pant leg, the force of which caused him to tumble atop her. He narrowly missed tearing at her hair in his hasty search for a soft (maybe more dignified) landing.

All in all, he could’ve cared less, all his mind on her panting and he squirmed from her grasp, hooking a golden leg over his shoulder, his fingers grasping into the underside of her thigh, forcibly rearranging her hips.

She laughed heartily and roughly secured a lick of his shorter blonde hairs before a violent tremble shot through her, her head rolling back as his lips laid a kiss upon her sex, tongue pressing between the swollen flesh. A flick up with the tip of his tongue and an inhalation of breath as he teased in circles around the enlarging nub of her clitoris.

How joyfully _indignant_ she sounded as she cursed him, cursed him as she loved him. “Clint, tease me le -” The back of her knee slapped firmly against the side of his head, one ear most decidedly ringing, and he felt the muscle twitch as she jumped once again, fingers scrabbling for their once solid handhold.

He hissed his own laugh, his tongue pressing further into her. The Goddess was growing wetter the more he teased, and she tasted wonderful. Barton tried to keep his mind off the fact that his dick was twitching, the bits of couch loosened by their tumble only serving to give him scraping moments of electrical pleasure.

 _Soon,_ he thought, _just a little longer._

Rubbing his nose against her clit, he used his tongue to carve out his own path, his juices mixing with hers as he felt the tremble of her walls increase particularly as he focused just a little higher, just a little more -

The scream she emitted was a thunderclap after the sudden silence and the back of the couch shuddered as she seemed to try to avoid crushing his head to her, both hands and arms reaching backing for the arm rest, tearing at it as the supple back arched, legs drawing up, drawing him along with her climax.

A moment more, his eyes unseeing as he listened to her waves spill out and he pulled back, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand, sitting back on his heels as he finally looked down on the Asgardian he had reduced to mewling softly.

A bit slack jawed, he chewed on his lip. “Damn, you look…good.”


	6. Sing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sort of semi continuation of the previous chapter.

The half triumphant roar that escaped her lips was like music to his ears.

Twisting and contorting atop his figure, grinding the underside of her thighs against his hips, she was like a wild, voracious animal, laughing and crying out as she forced his cock deeper and deeper into her body. The clench and tremble of her wet, inner muscular walls showed she was reaching her limits, and he had long ago nearly given up in trying to have her do anything else but what she wanted - after all, his body was practically humming and screaming along with hers, sweat slicking his skin, making it hard to grasp onto the flushed, corded flesh of her legs.

He watched her long hair toss and shake, clinging to her scarred shoulders and teasing at the slender, swollen nipples, accenting her slender breasts.

She was beautiful, insane, a powerful unrelenting goddess, and utterly devoted, a slight, intoxicated smile turning up the edges of her mouth. The storm that grasped and tore all sane thought from his head, drove him to unbridled madness as she sucked him in, made stars blind his vision. He was certain he'd be bruised on the morrow.

The clouds that hung outside and around the articulately decorated Stark Tower rumbled and rolled, heavy, thick sheets of rain crashing against the metallic shell of a tower.

_Shit, lightning -_

A blinding flash and the building shook to its base.

Thor heaved out a _sound_ , breath coming in shorter gasps as his rough fingers delved between her thighs, into the dark curls, thumb smearing up and winding, circulating her swollen clit in a determined pattern (she responded well when he paid attention to the points between twelve and three).

Clint felt he needed to either stop her or encourage her, knowing that he was going to loose it before her easily, never having imagined that, in her offered guest suite, he coming to visit her from his apartment down the way, he would manage to find a desperately hungry Asgardian whom, as he learned over the course of their awkward half conversation between kisses and her shredding his civilian clothes off, had been teased relentlessly in some fashion by Tony Stark. Been challenged to a drinking contest, she had won, of course, " "twas not Asgardian fare -" and while he had been cheerfully mopped up by Pepper who looked like she was nearly going to throw him out the nearest window, the blonde haired woman had been left to her own devices, squirming in the clothing she had been gifted so "as to not stand out so much like a trophy husband."

Whatever that had meant. Clearly, _Mister_ Stark was feeling threatened by the Asgardian - he had seen the way Pepper and she had spent time together, surprisingly compatible and affable, quick to learn and listen, much unlike himself. He seemed to have forgotten that was one of the nice things about his own personality, when done well, anyway.

Certainly, Audra had confessed to feeling attracted to the other woman, but very determinedly had assured him she had told the Midgardian - "mortal - ah -  _woman_ -" that she was determined to entertain the Hawk, so forgive her for any misunderstandings.

A moan ripped out of his throat as his back arched, blanking out the thoughts of earlier.

_Damn._

Audra had weakened, and in a stolen moment, he crushed his hips up against hers, hearing the sharp wet _slap_ as he overturned her from his force, hands scrambling for purchase, trying to hold himself _and_ her from slipping off the bed, feet tangling in the sheets. Surprisingly, however, he heard and felt her give out a loud bark of laughter, her hands burning as she half clawed up his back (probably burning bright red lines in it), half restraining herself up over the precarious edge of the bed.

" _Yes...!_ " Her elation was clear - even in her intoxicated state where, somehow, the Goddess was better than a normal mortal (because he knew from experience that the drunken state did _anything_ but help - now if someone _wanted_ sloppy sex, that was something else entirely), and he had only the will, the drive to see that glimmering smile, hear the cacophony of noise as he smothered her mouth with his lips, laved at her glistening neck, and worshiped the dark areola with light grazes of his teeth, leaving bright marks of his own over her chest and collarbone.

When her orgasm hit, he knew. He knew as much that he had stopped paying attention to the flashing lights on the alarm clock, that he had stopped paying attention the way the lights in the hallway under the door had flickered in and out, and the way the thunderous roar that seemed to encase and yet not harm a single thing as it swelled up, rising with the Goddess until she was done. Rolling and aching, sweating, she barely hang on, body shivering and gleaming in the low light.

A few more haphazard thrusts where he tried to remember how to breathe, how to be again, and he tore them both back onto the bed, ignoring the disarray of fabric that had heaped itself onto the floor.

Dizzy, he stared up at the ceiling.

He caught the barest edges of her words, swallowed up in a laugh. "...oh _Allmother_..."


	7. Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and a sort of testy bit of me fiddling around with other characters and the way they deal/act around the pair, even when they're not really sharing the same two feet of space.

"So who's the pretty princess? That can't be Thor, right?"

Clint tried hard not to raise his brows over his modified sunglasses's rim, picking over the array of weaponry that Tony Stark had dumped in front of him. They were an assorted of tested (and untested, he was sure) arrowhead designs, that had somehow passed a bizarre range of tests to get to be presented to him. He didn't respond even as he heard the telltale sounds of a muffled heel-step across the concrete to pause, adjust, and enter the conversation.

Her ears, of course, were perfect, neatly accented by a pair of beautiful drops of metal.

"Hey Nat - " he started to say, but she ignored him.

"If that's a pretty princess, Tony, I think the world would have been a far better place; women would still rule." The unmistakable Russian accent is like the caress of a cat, and Clint restrains a smile. "Hey Clint."

Tony's eyebrows raise, arms raising up at the same time. "Well then maybe you shouldn't have lost it."

The archer snorts and lets his fingers pick over the assorted sharp ends, picking up one shaft and then placing it down again in favor of another in the heat of the day. "We've had this conversation before, Stark; people who are long dead decided they liked dick better."

Nat made a sound, and Tony rolled his eyes, scratching at his head. "Well, there is no accounting for taste, is there - I agh, seriously, _how can_ you _stand this heat?_ "

Before Clint could answer however, the Russian was already responding, and he saw her shift, neatly gloved hands sliding up to her large framed sunglasses that gleamed in the light. "Does that mean then that Pepper should get rid of you then, Mister Stark?"

Neatly suited up in his flat sneakers and obnoxious conglomerate of what he was quite certain was one the latest fashions with a loose golf shirt and pants, Tony leaned onto the table, fingers tapping on the hard surface as he appeared to be seriously debating on a response. Puckering up his lips in thought, he shook his head and pointed a finger at her, pointing at his chest as he spoke. "That hurt, Miss Romanoff, _right here_."

Natasha, standing in her black and white dress suit that looked a bit like something out of the early 60s, took a drink from the water bottle Hawkeye had dragged with him outside, careful to not get her red lipstick on the rim. "Easier than I thought." Clearly the light hint of the dark rings under her eyes spoke of an op sooner or later she may or may not share with him.

Clint smiled this time, slowly manipulating the awkward pile of neatly tagged arrows into smaller, more contained and organized piles, adjusting his weight as he did so. "These are nice, a bit overdone really, but I can work with that; I've a range set up already, so thanks, Stark." He began to put the piles he had made into smaller groups. "I'll be leaving these more ineffectual models with you."

"Ineffectual? _Ineffectual?_ Natasha - really, now you're _both_ hurting me."

"Shouldn't be any less than the little deaths you suffer every night," the woman quipped back, clearly amused. "Clearly your armor needs some _upgrades._ "

Slinging the black duffel bag he had brought with him to the table over his shoulder, now full again, Clint nodded his exit to Stark, and then Nat, giving her a brief hug and smiling at the kiss she gave his cheekbone. "Well, not all of us can be perfect, Nat, or a Goddess out of legend."

He turned from the table to walk away, leaving the genuis and the non-aging spy to their banter, his eyes briefly looking over Audra and Pepper sitting in the overhanging shade of one of Tony's little portable service bars. They were clearly enjoying themselves, and probably sharing a strange sort of conversation that had something to do with the state of things.

How strange still to think out of everyone, she'd wanted him. And all because he'd given her a damn blanket. The world was a strange place.


End file.
